1. Field of Invention
This present invention is directed to wireless printing applications, more particularly, to printing from handheld devices, such as cellular telephones.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Recent years have seen a proliferation of portable electronic devices such as personal digital assistants (PDA's), mobile (cellular) telephones, and/or other portable electronic devices. These mobile devices offer a range of capabilities, including mobile calendars, organizing capabilities, and electronic mail (email) received and transmitted via a mobile pager network or other mobile networks, etc. In particular, the mobile phone market has seen a dramatic increase in the number of phones sold with built-in cameras. While generally not of the same quality as dedicated cameras, these devices have proven popular for taking casual images and sending the images to other people, usually over the mobile phone network. The feature is also popular with mobile phone network service providers (hereinafter referred to as “carriers”), who typically charge a fee of up to 25 cents to send an image, and often another fee to receive the image.
In addition to sending images from one user to another, a user may want to print the pictures taken with their wireless phone camera. However, most wireless phones do not have user-accessible printing capability, often because printing applications are blocked by the carrier. One method by which a user can print images from a wireless phone is by sending the image as an email to their home computer, and printing the image from there. The user then pays the carrier's fees for sending the image. This method has several disadvantages. First, it is inconvenient to set up and to use. Second, it requires that the destination printer is attached to the user's personal computer. This excludes the growing segment of standalone snapshot printers, which can operate without a personal computer. Third, this method is limited to use in locations near the user's home personal computer.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,975,419 entitled “System and Method for Mobile Printing” (hereinafter referred to as the '419 patent) discloses a printing system and method that facilitates mobile printing of a document using an email system as discussed above. Referring to FIG. 1, there is illustrated a block diagram of a mobile print network 100 in accordance with the disclosure of the '419 patent. According to the '419 patent, a user at a print site 101 carries a mobile device 102. Stored on the mobile device 102 is a document 104 that the user wishes to print out. At the print site 101, the user may have several choices of printers, including printers 105 and 107 and other printers linked to the local area network 109, any of which could be used to print the document 104. Assume that the user chooses to print the document 104 on the printer 105 that is coupled directly to the local area network 109. According to the '419 patent, the user may walk up to the printer 105 and identify the particular printer alias 108a that is assigned thereto. This printer alias 108a is printed in a label form that is attached to the printer 105, thereby associating the alias with the printer 105.
The '419 patent discloses that once the user knows the printer alias 108a associated with the printer 105, the user then creates an email message with the email system 110 in the mobile device 102 and attaches the document 104 to be printed to the email message. The user then enters the printer alias 108a as the destination address for the email message and then transmits the email message to the printer 105. The email message with the attached document 104 then is transmitted from the mobile device 102 over a wireless connection to the mobile network 106. Upon detecting the destination address of the email message, the mobile network 106 then provides the email message to the network 103 through the network gateway 119. The network 103 then routes the same email message to the email server 112, and the gateway 115 in the email server 112 routes the email message to the automated print agent 121. According to the '419 patent, the automated print agent 121 may reside in any one of a mobile print appliance 129, the email server 112, the printer 105, or other devices that are in data communication with the mobile device 102. Therefore, alternatively, the email message may be routed via network gateway 117 and local area network 109 to the automated print agent 121. Regardless of where the automated print agent 121 is located, in all cases it acts as a network destination for the email message with the attached document 104 that was addressed to the printer alias 108a. Upon receiving the email message with the attached document 104, the automated print agent 121 orchestrates the printing of the document 104 on the printer 105. In doing so, the automated print agent 121 transmits the document 104 to the rendering application 123 to have the document 104 rendered in a printer ready format. The rendering application 123 may be located in the email server 112, the mobile print appliance 129, or the mobile print server 113 as shown, as well as in other devices that are in data communication with the automated print agent 121. The printer ready format may be, for example, printer control language (PCL) or PostScript. Thus, the '419 patent discloses a method of local wireless printing that uses an email system, as discussed above.